


your gravity helps me float, baby

by kwritten



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Canon Disabled Character, F/M, Implied/Referenced Torture, Sexual Content
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-17
Updated: 2015-12-17
Packaged: 2018-05-07 05:36:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5445197
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kwritten/pseuds/kwritten
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>for semelewriter's musings on tumblr:: "And of course now I want a fic that juxtaposes Raven’s fundamentally positive attitude to her body / pleasure / sex and Bellamy’s eternal war with his own body." I hope you like it, sis. </p><p> </p><p>
  <i>He thinks they could break every bone in Raven's body and she'd still work up the energy to bitch him out for touching her worktable. There's something about her that's unbreakable. <br/>She thinks she could push Bellamy away in every way and he’d still be sitting at her bedside bitching at her for getting herself hurt. There’s something about him that’s unshakeable. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	your gravity helps me float, baby

**Author's Note:**

  * For [semele](https://archiveofourown.org/users/semele/gifts).



> warnings for mentions of Raven's torture in s2 and also for ~general negative body image feelings; also hey it's me so rated "K" for "Kelsey's special brand of angst"

He first notices Raven’s eyes, the way they stare him down and don’t look away. She’s not one to give up easily and he’s seen that look before. Her eyes are a demand, she’s going to fucking take everything the world says she’s not allowed to have and damn anyone who gets in her way. 

The first thing she notices is Bellamy’s hands, the way they are strong but restrained on her skin. He’s holding himself back and she’s never seen that before. His hands are a question, he’s going to analyze that move for the rest of his life and he’ll never arrive at a conclusion. 

 

It’s like this: he thinks he knows all the answers, there is an order to the world, to the universe, and he knows all the rules and he knows how to break them without bending them, because _he_ refuses to bend, his body isn’t made of muscles and skin it’s made of bones and glass, there’s a brittleness to him and he pretends that it is a strength but he fears, deep in a place that no one not even he can see, that it is the greatest weakness that he bears, he is Achilles and it will only take the slightest touch before he is a bundle of shards on the ground.

There’s nothing holding him together but gravity pressing him down. 

It’s like this: she plays by different rules where everything bends and everything flows, there is stardust in her hair and she knows what it means to be weightless and it doesn’t terrify her the way that it would him, she craves it the way the ancient gods craved manna after they were expelled from heaven, she didn’t float down from the sky she crashed and when she landed she laughed and danced and that terrifies him, she likes to float in rivers rushing past her full of monsters in their depths because emptiness doesn’t scare her.

There’s nothing keeping her down she floats higher and higher for being on the ground. 

 

 _My mother loved for security_ , he says and there’s a hint of bitterness in his voice. Her body didn’t keep them safe, it just produced another reason for them to be in danger. That’s what bodies do, he thinks, maybe, tools that can get out of control and produce results you’d rather they didn’t. He’s washed blood from his own cracking knuckles, he’s seen pain, he’s seen what his body can produce and it’s red. 

Better keep what you want inside because your skin will betray you. 

_My mother loved for moonshine_ , she shrugs and there’s a hint of heavy acceptance to her voice. Her body was just a tool, all bodies are tools, it’s how you use them that matters. That’s what bodies do, she thinks, maybe, they exist to get you what you need and for other people to hurt. She’s limped over to the well with dried blood clinging her skin enough times to know that there’s no sense in hurting yourself, there’s too many reasons for other people to do that for you. 

Better take what you can get because the world will take everything it wants regardless. 

 

Indra’s warriors let their gaze travel over her without hesitation, she doesn’t belong to anyone but herself and that suits her just fine, and everyone likes looking. She likes that everyone likes looking. He wonders what she’d be like – belonging to someone. Would her eyes glint when she catches people staring, would the corner of her lips still curl up like a very satisfied feline, would she still manage to roll her hips despite her brace, would she still act like she’s laughing at a joke they haven’t told her yet? He can’t tell if he’d want her to or not, he doesn’t let himself think about that. Because there’s a very thin line between _Raven belongs to someone_ and _Raven belongs to me_ and anyway they’d only be words in the sand that she’d trample the minute he thought them. She comes tromping through camp in the morning, growling about the tea Monty’s been supplying her with that _almost_ makes her a morning person or at least a good degree less than violent. Later, he’ll sidle up to her and ask her about supplies or about that bridge they’ve been planning or the mining experiment and she’ll shrug as if he asked her about her sex life and say _it felt good_ and he won’t have a response to that. 

He’s used to feeling wordless. 

Lexa’s warriors, the ones that aren’t afraid of Octavia, don’t hide their appreciation for the elder Blake, they smirk when he strolls through camp and Raven’s the only one of them that knows that roll of his hips are for them and their shining eyes. She prefers him at home, his hesitancy, his restraint; he wears this armor like they forced it on him, it reminds her of the guards back on the Ark and the part that makes her angriest is that it should. He goes home alone and that would break her heart if she wasn’t laughing so hard picking up the broken hearts he left behind, sighing into the neck of someone who thinks she’s second-best. Home would fall apart without him there keeping it together and when she comes back in the morning, hunting down Monty and his miracle tea, and she sees him from across the fire and his eyes seek out her eyes instead of the hickey just above her neckline she’ll smile back and shrug and later she’ll say _it felt good_ even though he didn’t ask because she thinks sometimes that he needs to be reminded that people are still capable of doing something _just because_ it feels good and she won’t take offense or think too hard about the fact that he doesn’t know how to respond to that. 

She’s used to his silences. 

 

 

The first time, they don’t talk and he pretends not to care and she pretends not to be more broken or whole than she is, and that was probably for the best. 

Later, he’s lost everything he has except his ability to care and she’s never been more broken and it’s written on their skin – there’s no hiding it anymore, and that is better. 

 

 _How was Mt. Weather?_ she said and there’s a callousness in her tone that he knows isn’t meant for him. He’s learned her voice, learned her movements, felt her brush up against him a thousand times and that is _home_ , maybe. 

_Ask me again sometime,_ he said and there’s a sense of an echo in his voice that they don’t hear and isn’t meant for them. She’s learned his voice, learned his movement, felt him brush up against her a thousand times and that… is _home_? Maybe. 

 

When they walk away they aren’t hand-in-hand and his arm isn’t slung over her shoulder and they don’t exchange a meaningful glance because he’s a historian, he knows names and dates and numbers, and she’s a mechanic, she knows physics and explosions and working parts, and they don’t know that when you walk away it’s symbolic to do it in a certain way. They aren’t thinking like that because there have never been any poems in their world, everything was sterile and cold until it was dirty and cold; there’s no poetry in that. When they walk away they aren’t alone and their scars don’t glint any brighter in the moonlight than anyone else’s and that’s not poetry either, it’s just sad, so they don’t think about that much. 

 

The first time, they don’t say enough and he claims not to care and she doesn’t know how not to be more broken or whole than she is, and that wasn’t really the start anyway. 

Later, he’s proven there’s not much to him except his ability to care and she’s refused to let her scars paint her as a broken thing and the past is written on their skin – there’s no hiding it anymore, and that is a better starting place. 

_It feels good,_ she says and he agrees and they don’t mean the same thing, but that’s not really the start or the end or the point. If there is a point. 

 

 _What do you want?_ she breathes into his ear and it’s been a long day, the longest, they are all long here but it feels good on days that end like this, and he smirks before he kneels, pressing her knees apart gently, always careful and mindful of every part of her. The way he touches her leg makes her feel like it is a part of her and not a foreign element weighing her down. 

She laughs a little harshly, leaning down from her perch on the edge of her work table and pulls him up, _What do **you** want?_ She wraps her good leg around his waist, pinning him to her, standing up straight his eyes even with her eyes. She likes him like this, level and straight and tall, she likes his hips pressing against hers, his forehead pressing into hers. It almost feels like maybe he’s included in that list of things that are hers. 

His eyes bore into hers, _I **was** doing what I want._

She traces lines and words and designs in his skin with her fingertips and smiles at him. There is nothing shy or hidden about her smile. It’s the same here, perched on her worktable stark naked in the middle of the night, as it is out in the sunlight when Octavia tells a joke or Miller teases Monty or Lincoln sings one of those Grounder riddle-songs she loves. Her smile reveals too much and it would be sad if it was everything but. _No,_ she leans away from him a bit, her fingernails grazing his chest playfully, _What do you want for you?_

He kisses her softly because he is soft and she kisses back, hard, because she is hard and he distracts her long enough to fall back to his knees. She’s singing a song he wrote just for her before she realizes that he ignored her question. She’s getting better at ignoring the ways he distracts her. He’s getting better at knowing when she needs to be distracted. 

_Please,_ she whispers, her fingers tugging at his hair, willing him to rise and he’s on his feet in an instant, the sound of her call the only thing he wants, the only thing that he needs, just one little word. He’s inside of her before she finishes speaking and he doesn’t know how to tell her this is all he needs: her wanting him and him ready to fall inside of her orbit. 

So instead he just says, _Yes,_ into her hair and hopes that is enough. 

 

He knows how to give and that giving keeps him sane, keeps him kneeling between her legs, when he’s there he forgets how they got there, his mind stops the doubt from taking over. He’s seen what his body can produce and if he is careful, if he remembers to press this finger just so while his lips catch her before she falls, then together his fingers and hands and lips and tongue can produce a song that only Raven can sing. 

His body can do good and so he gives good. 

She knows how to feel and throwing her body into pleasure keeps her sane, keeps her breathing every day, keeps the nightmares and the worry and the stress from occupying every space in her mind. She gives over her skin and her laughter and her moans to his fingers and hands and lips and tongue with a recklessness that feels natural but should probably be terrifying. 

Her body can feel and so she lets go. 

 

Her body has a language all its own and he was willing from the first moment to spend the rest of his life learning its every word and direction. Some words come out from behind her lips pressed firmly together or just-so-slightly parted and others are so silent they are still. Her body has a language all its own and he likes to think that he is the only one who knows how to read it. _I am fluent in the language of Raven Reyes,_ he thinks to himself and smirks because maybe it’s true and maybe it’s not, but he gets better with experimentation and he’s never said no to a challenge. He wonders but never asks if the silver scars that run down her arms and across her stomach are more sensitive. He remembers watching, helpless, her blood flow from what are now just thin lines no one but him ever sees. He wants to worship them, worship her, take those scars and turn them into a song, run his lips over them and experiment. But there’s something in the memory of pain that keeps his lips on safer plains. 

She pretends to be a bundle of raw nerves that can only feel pleasure, but he’s seen her scream out in pain too many times to be fooled by the lies she tells herself in times of peace. 

His body is wound tighter than hers and it’s a thing of such mystery and beauty sometimes she can’t help but stare at it – at him, at the way it speaks so loud you’d think he was shouting and the whole world had gone deaf from it but her. She wants to push him but doesn’t dare. She wonders if he’d pull his fingers up into fists if they fought – she wonders which response would scare her more. She wonders if he knows how much he gives away, his soft sighs that pretend to be normal inhalations of oxygen through his open mouth, his eyes that flutter before opening wide or shutting tight, his muscles that ripple beneath her fingers. He only lets her lick at the planes of his chest after she’s shivering with want, he only lets her stare when he thinks it’s too dark for her to see, she can sink her teeth and nails into his skin and he pretends to breathe evenly, but in the harsh light of morning she can’t kiss the marks she left behind. That would be seeing too much. And there’s something in the memory of watching his hips roll when others are watching that keeps her eyes on his. 

He pretends to be a force to be reckoned with that can deal out vengeance and peace in equal measure, but she’s seen the way his eyes hide a deep flicker of fear right in the moment before he pulls the trigger to be fooled by the lies he tells himself in wartime. 

 

When he thinks about her body, he thinks of it falling into his too many times and how much he wishes that weren’t so. He hears her tears and her screams before she falls and then his hands and arms and chest are full of her warmth and that’s where his mind begins. She is stronger than him and he is just the thing that catches her sometimes. He has scars from her fingers and teeth, she’s still fighting against the world for the pain it’s caused and she takes it all back in pleasure, she’s the most wild thing he’s ever loved but he caught her and he’s not letting go even if they have enough scars between them to last a lifetime and she insists on creating more. 

When he thinks of his body, he wants to say he thinks of the way he catches her, but all he sees is a void of expectation and broken promises. 

When she thinks about his body, she thinks of an ocean wave crashing into a rock cliff and neither of those forces is her, she’s just a little boat in the storm, riding on the crest of the wave. Okay, maybe sometimes she’s the storm egging the rising wave on, but nothing is getting past that cliff face. She sees his fury and she sees his kindness and that’s all of him but only the smallest bits of him or maybe the parts of him that define the rest. He is stronger than he realizes and she is just the thing that’s holding on for the moment, hoping that he won’t dash her against the rocks and forget to heal himself when she climbs her way to the shore, broken and battered. 

When she thinks of her body, she wants to say she thinks of the way he can make it sing, but all she sees is a canvas for others to paint with her blood. 

There is only so much in this fragmented, terrifying world that you can control. So he wants to be the thing that catches her. So she wants to be the thing that writhes under his fingertips. 

So they are so much more broken than they’d like to admit. 

 

When he thinks of her, he thinks of how easy she is. Her shoulder pressed against hers, her hands ready to caution him back or push him forward. Her legs keeping pace with his long legs despite the odds. The way her hair speaks in a way that tells him to pay closer attention to her words. Her smile. He wanted to think that her smile was hard, crooked, self-deprecating, that she kept it hidden and it meant a thousand different things. It’s not. It’s the most simple smile in the world. Her smile. 

When she thinks of him, she thinks of how easy he is. His head leaning over her shoulder, his hands grazing her shoulder as he passes to remind her that he’s there. His legs keeping pace with her short stride despite the effort. The way his eyes speak in a way that tells her to pay closer attention to his words. His smile. She wanted to think that his smile was easy, simple, self-assured, that he used it like a bad habit and it always meant the same thing. It’s not. It’s the most complicated smile in the world. His smile. 

 

When he thinks of his body, he thinks of the way her breath hitches when his teeth join his fingers and hands and lips and tongue and she sings a song he wrote just for her. 

When she thinks of her body, she thinks of the way he leans gently into her touch almost as if he is afraid until her fingers and hands and lips and tongue comfort him just enough so that he lets go. 

 

When he thinks of his body, he forgets about the blood he can’t wash his hands clean of, he forgets the way they looked at him when he rolled his hips the right way and led women to him the right way and never wore a shirt so that they could _see_ he was the right one, he forgets the fear of losing control. 

When she thinks of her body, she forgets about the scars they put there, she forgets about the dead weight of a leg she cannot feel and the pitying glances they used to shoot her way and the limitations she pretended weren’t there, she forgets the memory of pain. 

When they think of themselves, they don’t think of the scars the world told them they had to carry. 

 

On good days, when they think of themselves, they think of each other. 

On hard days, when they think of themselves, they remember their fears and they are real because they’ve born them all. They only fear things they’ve already known, only fear what they’ve done and been and suffered, they fear the past because the worst has already happened. 

On good days, when they think of each other, they don’t see the fear clinging to their backs like shadows. 

And maybe that’s almost good enough. 

 

He thinks they could break every bone in Raven's body and she'd still work up the energy to bitch him out for touching her worktable. There's something about her that's unbreakable. 

She thinks she could push Bellamy away in every way and he’d still be sitting at her bedside bitching at her for getting herself hurt. There’s something about him that’s unshakeable. 

 

The first thing he learns about her is that she was born expecting to be broken; unwanted, unfed, unloved. The universe brought her into being and then looked down and said, good luck, but didn’t hold her hand. This shouldn’t be the first thing he learns, he should have learned her name, her age, her favorite color, but maybe it’s easy to look at her and see her entire history. She was born expecting to be broken and she never, ever will. She laughs up at him once, her leg shaking with pain, her face ashen and drawn, _can I trade this body in for a new one?_ and he laughs too because she’s so _whole_ and brilliant and alive that he can’t help but laugh when she asks him to. 

She survived when there was only herself to see this life thing through. 

The first think she learns about him is that he was born into a minefield of expectations and responsibilities; the only brother in a society with no brothers. The universe brought him into being and then looked down and said, here’s one more, and gave him a hand to hold. This shouldn’t be the first thing she learns, she should have learned his favorite color, his hobbies, his name, but maybe it’s easy to look at him and see everything that made him. He was born with expectations and he never put them down. He laughs over at her once, his hands shaking with frustration, his face ashen and drawn, _can I trade her in for a new sister?_ and she laughs too because he’s a _brother_ and brilliant and good and she can’t help but laugh when he asks her to. 

He kept two people alive when all anyone else ever had was one. 

 

The first thing he notices is Raven’s hands, the way they are steady and don’t flinch despite the knife in her hand and his hand on her throat. He’ll always remember how steady she was, how sure, how proud. When he thinks of Raven, he sees her as he first saw her and how she looked that morning when she grumbled and groused her way through camp to her workshop, why is winter a thing that happens anyway? They are the same and they are not the same. She’s going to fucking take everything the world says she’s not allowed to have and he knows from experience that you might as well get out of her way. 

She first notices Bellamy’s eyes, the way they flicker with anxiety and frustration but stay hard because there’s something driving him forward. She’ll always remember how torn he was, how strong, how desperate. When she thinks of Bellamy, she sees him as she first saw him and how he looked that morning when he stubbed his toe on her leg brace in the corner for the third time and tried to swear softly so that she didn’t wake up. They are the same and they are not the same. His eyes are a question, and he’s going to analyze every move he makes for the rest of his life in fear that he went too far and he’ll never arrive at a conclusion. 

 

There’s nothing holding them together but gravity.   
They float higher and higher for being on the ground.


End file.
